Designer Spotlight with Paige Evans: Julie Taylor

I was teaching at a scrapbooking event put on by Birds of a Feather in Birmingham England this past March and was browsing through a scrapbook of a future event teacher – Julie Taylor. It was love at first sight! Her layers, mixed media, and attention to detail truly makes Julie an artist and I am so excited to shine the spotlight on her today!

Name: Julie Taylor
Location: Birmingham, England
Instagram: @julie9699
Pinterest: @julie9699
Facebook: Julie Taylor

Tell us a little bit about you and how you got started scrapbooking: I’m a mom to 2 grown up girls, Isobel who’s 21 & Amelia who’s 18, who are the subjects in many of my layouts. I also work part-time as a hairdresser, a job I truly love. We have a menagerie of animals, 2 dogs, Riley & Milo, 3 rabbits, Daisy, Clive & baby Ernie & Kendell the tortoise. They have all been rescued from animal shelters mainly down to my youngest daughter who’s doing veterinary care in collage. For as long as I can remember I’ve loved to create stuff, trying sewing, embroidery, flower arranging & finally I found card making about 10 years ago which led onto scrapbooking about a year later. I was really nervous about doing my first page, that 12×12 sheet looked huge & completely intimidating but thankfully that soon passed & there’s no stopping me now.

What is your favorite thing to create? I love that I am recording the memories of our life, not just the big events but the small, trivial stuff that will slip our minds with time. This hobby has also given me many friends, some that I speak to on a daily basis. I’ve also been very lucky to contribute to some fab design teams: Hey Little Magpie, Bramble Fox, The Cut Shoppe & Feed your Craft and I’ve even been asked to do some teaching at local retreats.

5 fun facts about you:
1. I married my holiday romance. I travelled 1,697 miles to Corfu Greece and met my future husband who lived 5 miles away from me. Been married now for 24 years, who says holiday romances don’t work!!
2. I’m a coffee addict, need it morning, noon & night to function.
3. I’m an avid hoarder of all things pretty or otherwise, tickets, ribbon, zips, buttons anything that I think may come in useful on a scrapbook layout. I have tins & drawers full of the stuff but I NEED it all.
4. I’m a glass half full person, rarely down and always see the positives in any situation.
5. I’m a YouTube fanatic, watch all the process videos I can find, but never fancied making one myself.

ONE DAY WE’LL LAUGH ABOUT THIS by Julie Taylor

This layout came from all those mad snapchat photos we all keep taking. I hate having my photo taken but strangely I love doing this. I enjoy adding inks & texture paste to most of my pages, I love how you can get a completely individual look, no one else will do it the same as you. Another thing I like adding to my layouts is texture, found here in the inked, torn gauze bandage & stitching down the centre papers

HELLO DARLING by Julie Taylor

This layout came about from the lovely photo of my eldest daughter, taken by a friend of mine. I just loved how misty & ethereal she looks, so I wanted to create a soft page. Again I’ve gone with watercolours but added my texture with torn washi & machine sewing. I’ve also ripped & punched the edge of the cardstock & backed it, at an angle, on some patterned paper.

SO MANY IDEAS SO LITTLE TIME by Julie Taylor

Now isn’t this the motto of all us scrappers?? I don’t know about you but my mind sometimes has so many ideas in it that I have to get them down on paper. I do carry a notebook with me so I can jot these thoughts down if needed. I was sorting out my craft room and had taken some of albums down to move around & just snapped a photo of them. I then saw this quote on Pinterest and thought it would make the great basis of a layout about scrapping.

SOME BUNNY LOVES YA by Julie Taylor

Again some silly snapchat photos, this time with my youngest daughter. I don’t get many photos of them now, it’s not cool!!!, so make the most of the opportunities when I can. Again some stitching, some ink splatters & I think my favourite colour combination, teal & pink.

HAPPY LITTLE MOMENTS by Julie Taylor

This layout was inspired by a card given to me for my birthday. It had a garland of beautiful feathers on it & I thought it would translate well into a layout. It turned out to be a bit of a labour of love, die cutting all those feathers, but I was very pleased with the end result.

Are you inspired?! I sure am! Julie’s mixed media pages give me all the heart eyes! Be sure to follow along her instagram and more to keep up with her fabulous designs!